


the pre-existing condition of being the tin woodsman

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Brief ableist language, M/M, Magical Realism, Medical Conditions, because i am tired, like why is duper there when this is nominally set in 07?, the bog standard disclaimer that this pays no attention to timelines or reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 21:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15494871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: It'd be the stupidest idea in the world, wouldn't it, for a man born with no heart to fall in love.





	the pre-existing condition of being the tin woodsman

**Author's Note:**

> like a lot of the details of crosby's whole situation are fictionalized to a possibly criminal extent but listen: the amount i'm willing to research ~~or make moliver research~~ crosby's teenage years is limited and also i write about l#mieux when i'm cold in my grave. 
> 
> anyway, we all need to accept artistic license here
> 
> enjoy!! xoxo

Sidney Crosby is born at three and three quarters kilograms, missing his heart.

-/-

“They’re just jealous,” his mother soothes him when she finds him tucked into the corner behind his bed, his chest gaping open and his shiny heart in his hands. He’s not crying but he had been and hadn’t had a chance to wipe his cheeks off before she’d come in.

“I don’t,” he says, and then has to swallow until his throat clicks. He doesn’t wanna start crying again. He just doesn’t _understand_. 

He’s winning them games. He doesn’t get why they hate him for it. He just wants to be good at hockey. 

“Did they say something about your heart, honey?” she asks gently, squishing herself down into the space barely big enough for someone ten years old. It looks kind of funny, her knees up near her chin and her sweater yanked sideways by the way she’d had to slide down the wall. 

He cradles his heart closer. It’s cool against his fingers, the slick glass and copper, the rough hazelwood, the quartz biting comfortingly at his fingertips. He likes his heart. He really does. It’s the perfect size for his chest and when he’s lying in bed waiting to fall asleep it ticks out a soothing, perfect metronome beat. 

“They’re just jealous,” she says softly, and helps guide his hands in slotting his heart back into his chest. “There’s nothing wrong with you, baby, I promise. Nothing wrong with your heart.” 

He presses his hands against his chest to feel his heart start to beat, slow and steady. 

“Okay,” he says, and his breath shudders but he pulls in the air, determined.

-/-

The first time he hears someone describe holding someone else’s heart that isn’t like, some romance novel bullshit it’s his freshman year and he’s trying to get changed after practice. He’s fucking _starving_. He’d skipped half of lunch to get yelled at by his English teacher, and he just needs some calories.

Caleb is two lockers down and he has his head tucked bashfully. He’s blushing. Sid looks down at his hands lacing up his shoes and pretends he isn’t listening. 

“It was like,” Caleb is saying to his friends, gathered and leaning against the lockers around him, “fucking soft. Warm, y’know. I don’t know, man, I just don’t know.” 

Sid’s heart doesn’t skip a beat. It can’t skip a beat; it would be a shitty artificial heart if it did that. He swallows and tugs the knot tight on his shoes and stands up. No one is looking at him. A few people are particularly conspicuous in not looking at him. 

He doesn’t care, he tells himself, and heads out. He needs calories if he doesn’t wanna pass out when he hits the downtown rink to practice shootouts later.

-/-

He doesn’t remember the first interview he ever gave. He's read it a few times, some local puff piece thing about his heart, and it fucking bothers him that it barely even mentions anything to do with hockey. He's not too upset he doesn’t remember it.

His mom has it clipped out for the folder she thinks he doesn’t know about, with all the good press and all the fun articles. None of the bad ones. She doesn’t know he knows it’s tucked into the top shelf of her closet but he isn’t actually an idiot. 

She also has a Google alert set up for him which he knows about because, again, he’s not an idiot. He guesses it’s nice someone’s keeping track of it all because he definitely doesn’t read his own press. He is, yet again, not an idiot.

-/-

“I’ve heard,” this kid Sid doesn’t even know says. He doesn't know the kid but Sid knows what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth. “People with fake hearts can’t feel anything.”

“I can feel shit,” he says monotonously, because he’s heard it all before. There’s literally nothing this kid can say that’ll be surprising. He’s heard absolutely everything before. 

The kid grins. 

“Can you feel that?” he asks and shoves at Sid’s shoulder. When Sid doesn’t react he flicks him on the cheek. “How about that?” 

Sid glares at him, hand against his cheek because he’d definitely felt that. 

“Fuck off,” he says brusquely, and tries to turn away. Sometimes that’s enough. Usually, even. 

The kid smiles at him. It’s an ugly smile. 

“I heard people that don’t have hearts are, like, psycho,” he stage-whispers, loud enough for the whole locker room to hear. It’s nothing Sid hasn’t heard before. It’s not new, it’s just shitty and he’s tired and sore from practice. “I’ve heard you don’t even have feelings. Is that true?” 

Sid knows he beat this kid at faceoffs and shootouts and the fucking _bag skates_. Knows he embarrassed this kid in the drills, skated rings around him, made him look like a toddler on the ice, because that’s what he’s good at. He knows what the kid is really mad at. Knows it isn’t- it isn’t supposed to be about him, but it is. 

It is. 

“Bet you don’t even love your mom,” the kid hisses at him, and Sid knows it’s not true that he can’t feel things, because he’s incandescent with anger as he tackles the kid over the locker room bench.

-/-

He’s growing but at the moment his heart fits a little too small in his two cupped hands, a little too big still to fit in just one palm.

It’s heavy. It cools down quickly when he eases it free of his ribcage. The intricate mechanism of it ticks away in his hands, measuring out a beat that’s supposed to be perfectly tuned to him. He’s never so sure, but he’s also not sure how he’d know anyway if it weren’t. 

He’s seen the movies. When he grows up a little there’s supposed to be someone who’ll want to hold his heart. He wonders if they’ll like the rough way the quartz scratches at his thumbs. It’s not soft like it’s supposed to be. 

He hopes they don’t mind so much. He kind of hopes they have soft hands, though it’s not like _his_ heart would be able to feel to know any differently.

-/-

The Combine blows, because of course it does.

The media kind of got over asking him about his heart regularly when they realized he wasn’t going to give them any answers that would make newsworthy soundbites. Because no, he doesn’t think it gives him any edge in hockey. He doesn’t think it affects his play. And yeah, he’s going to lie and say it’s never affected him in the locker room. 

But the Combine is something else, something new, and so he goes through twelve rounds of those exact questions. He has all the platitudes prepared at least. It’s more boring than actively offensive anymore. He’s almost zoning out. 

No, it doesn’t give him an edge in hockey. No, it doesn’t affect his play. No, it doesn’t make things weird in the locker room. He tries to smile into the cameras. 

Taylor waves at him from the other side of the scrum and his smiles comes a little bit easier. 

“Who are you hoping to pick you?” a reporter shouts from the back and it’s not exactly, like, _original_ but at least it’s about hockey.

-/-

So he goes first overall.

It’s not healthy, which he knows, but he does wonder where he’d been drafted if he weren’t _Sid the kid_. If he weren’t the Canadian wunderkind with no heart in his chest. Mostly, he tries to smile and tries not to think about it.

-/-

He wasn’t like, necessarily hoping things will be different.

The fans will be different, and he hopes the opposing players will be different. Having fewer parents catching him in the parking lot to curse him out for denying their kid the chance to go first in the draft, like Sid has ever done a thing other than just try to play his hardest, that would be nice. 

It is different. He feels- he feels good about it. Like maybe he’s made it somewhere he was supposed to be. 

He tries not to think about that because he’s the first person to admit he’s superstitious as fuck and nothing feels so much like tempting fate.

-/-

“Crosby,” Fleury calls and beckons him over.

He pastes on a grin and goes. He doesn’t really trust people with big smiles, as a general rule. They’re better with people than he is, and nearly always want something from him. It’s never anything he particularly wants to give. 

“Hey, Marc-André,” he says. He’s aware he’s hovering awkwardly but like, he genuinely has no idea what to do with his hands. He tucks them in his pockets. Fleury doesn’t seem to notice. He snorts and waves his hands like he’s slapping at a swarm of bees. His pads are half-on, half hanging off him in awkward flaps. 

“ _Marc-André_ ,” he scoffs, and points at Sid. “I am Flower! And you’re Sid. Croz?” 

Sid makes a face and Fleury - Flower? - laughs. 

“Yes, no, Sid. Sid the kid. Do me a favor?” 

Sid manages to keep the wince off his face at least. He knew it was coming. Not really surprising. People like Flower want things. It’s just the way things work. 

“Sure,” he says gamely. He’s a team player. 

Flower grins at him, bright horsey teeth and a sparkle to his gaze that’s kind of speculative but- Sid realizes with a start it’s not directed at him at all. He’s looking past Sid, at Tanger he realizes when he glances over, watching him strip unsuspecting out of his street clothes. Flower looks like he’s assessing a target. 

“Keep Tanger on the ice for a little while after practice,” he murmurs to Sid, tips a wink, and then he’s bending over his pads like he hasn’t just handed Sid something incredible. 

“Oh,” he says and then jumps and bends to get his own pads. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that.” 

Later, winded from practice and hoping it masks how he's flushing, he calls Tanger back to ask him something completely stupid about the fucking skate sharpener he already knows from orientation. Tanger answers anyway, smiling at him benignly, and Sid feels the metronome beat of metal and glass and hazelwood in his chest kick up an artificial gear. He knows no one else can hear it but he can feel it in his fingertips. 

Tanger follows him back in and discovers the solid block of ice that’s become of his underwear with a bellow of outrage. 

Flower leaps on Sid’s back and Tanger shoves them both and yells at them some more and Flower’s screaming with laughter, rapid Québécois he has no hope of understanding in his ear. Sid grins and tucks his arms under Flower’s legs and takes off across the locker room, Tanger throwing his gloves after them, and all the veterans are laughing at them. 

He goes home and he doesn’t realize until he’s tucked up in the corner of the couch that no one asked about the cool weight in his chest even once.

-/-

He takes out his heart sometimes and cradles it in his hands.

It’s supposed to be about as heavy as any natural heart; he’s never held anyone else’s so he wouldn’t know for sure. He knows it weighs nine and three quarters of an ounce. He knows it’s got five chambers, one extra for redundancy, and it’s made of quartz and copper and glass and hazelwood. 

He thinks it’s pretty ugly, actually. Awkward and unwieldy. It's kind of embarrassing imagining taking it out in front of anyone. He's not really sure who'd want to touch it except for maybe out of curiosity. He tells himself it stopped bothering him in high school.

-/-

He should have known something was up when Tanger asked him to hang back and help with shootouts, but he doesn’t, because he doesn’t know any better yet. All he knows is that there’s a suspicious number of people hanging out fully dressed in the locker room when Tanger finally lets him off the ice and they’re all carefully not looking at him and it- it doesn’t feel great. It’s worrying.

He keeps his head down and sneaks glances at everyone pretending they’re not sneaking glances right back and bites down on the anxiety bubbling up in his chest. 

He’s putting up points, he’s winning them games - not as many as he wants to be, but he can only do so much. He hasn’t fucked up anything he can think of. His hand wants to grab at his chest, cover the place where his chest would open, check on the heartbeat he can already feel pounding in his pulse points. 

Everyone’s fucking watching him. 

He doesn’t know _why_ until he makes his way out to the parking lot trailing a string of hockey players trying desperately to act casual and discovers that his car has been imprisoned by a loop of shopping carts. 

“What,” he manages and Tanger lets out a bark of laughter that sounds like it hurt. 

“Your face,” he pants and Sidney looks at him and then back at his car and then back at Tanger. 

“What the fuck?” he asks and he isn’t even mad, he’s just- he’s just _baffled_ , he doesn’t even know how anyone could have gotten this many shopping carts to the rink. “How- What the fuck?” 

Tanger howls. Talbot is right behind him, not quite as loud but still red in the face with laughter. 

Flower is nowhere in sight but Sid _knows_. 

“How did he even do this?” he demands and no one can answer him but everyone pitches in to help him dismantle enough of the circle for Sid to drive out and they laugh at him the whole time. But he like… it leaves him feeling a little warm, actually. To get pranked by Flower. Like he’s part of the team now.

-/-

Flower never asks him about his heart, even when Sid overhears the media pressing him about it.

“Have questions about,” Sid hears him say, accent heavier than he’s ever heard it before. He’s waving his hands around and smiling so widely Sid can see his molars. He’s having fun with it, somehow. “Ah, hockey? Questions about hockey?” 

He thinks about thanking Flower for it but as soon as the media scrum is over every time Flower just throws an arm around his shoulder and starts listing off restaurants for dinner, bars for celebrations or commiserations. There never seems like a good time. He doesn’t really want to anyway. He doesn’t want to break the peace.

-/-

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Sid says, more for posterity’s sake than anything. “Curfew.”

“C’mon,” Flower says and smiles at him and Sid sighs and follows him to the stairs. 

The pool of this hotel is big and a little grungy and completely deserted at eleven o’clock at night on a weekday. Flower strips down to his boxers and dives in like it’s nothing, surfaces looking bedraggled and happy out towards the middle of the pool. Sid stays at the edge, keeps his shirt on and just dangles his feet in. 

It’s quiet, just Flower splashing around and the slap of water against the edge of the pool. Sid watches him for a little while and then lays back against the cool, damp cement to stare up at the ceiling. It’s kind of nice here; peaceful. 

Flower pulls himself up next to Sid in a surge of warm pool water, sprawling out on the cement and soaking Sid’s shirt. Sid doesn’t bother caring, just nudges him with an elbow and throws an arm over his eyes. 

“We’re gonna win, you and me,” Flower says and Sid knows exactly the grin he’s wearing without even looking.

-/-

Geno crashes into Sid’s life somewhat like an elephant into a museum. Sid likes him immediately.

He’s big and brash and doesn’t apologize for _anything_ and any English he speaks comes straight from the locker room. If he knows the words to ask Sid about his heart he never exhibits the capability, and in the meanwhile he dishes absolute scorchers straight to Sid’s tape and that’s all that should matter if Sid has anything to say about it. 

He hooks Sid under his arm after their first game and shakes him until Sid can’t even tell what’s rattling around in him. His brain, probably. 

“Game!” he shouts, “Game, game!” 

The locker room laughs at him but, like, respectfully.

-/-

It takes Sid a possibly embarrassing amount of time to realize Flower is hovering patiently at his shoulder. Everyone’s mostly settled into their chosen seats, a game of poker going on in front of him and Geno calling something unintelligibly Russian from the open bathroom door. He stares back at Flower even longer, meeting his eyes and opening his mouth to say- something, he doesn’t even know what, Flower’s eyebrows raising higher as he waits.

“What’s up?” Sid asks at last. 

“Are you going to move your legs?” Flower asks and then, when Sid dumbly pulls his legs in as far as he reasonably can considering how tight the space is for a professional hockey player, edges past him to plop into the empty window seat next to him. “Rude, you know, very rude. Making me stand around like that. Very rude to your teammate.” 

Sid stares at him for a long beat. Flower rolls his eyes and pulls his phone out of his bag. 

“You,” Sid says and then realizes he doesn’t really know what to say. Flower snorts at him elegantly without looking up from whoever he’s busily texting. Tanger, if Sid had to put money on it. 

“You never have a seatmate,” he says, disdainful in the patently false way that means he’s teasing Sid and knows Sid’s about to realize it. “You like the aisle, I like the window. A match made in heaven.” 

Sid’s heart thuds in his chest, and he narrows his eyes at Flower. Flower ignores him. 

“Okay,” he says at last, cautiously. Flower doesn’t look up from his texting but he does roll his eyes again. From just behind them Duper’s voice rises in a storm of furious cursing. The plane is starting to lurch away from the gate, and it’s… it’s pretty okay, actually.

-/-

He takes his heart out the morning after every game and turns it over in his hands, looking for flaws.

Even players with natural hearts can suffer injuries. Even through the padding, fragile muscle and sinew not meant to take the impact of getting nailed to the boards by two hundred pounds of hockey player. His heart just happens to cost a couple thousand dollars to replace. 

It's difficult to look at clinically but he checks the glass for scratches, the quartz for cracks. Dents in the metal or splintering in the wood. He makes sure to be thorough. 

He makes sure never to do it in the locker room.

-/-

Inevitably, they lose.

Sid isn’t good at losing. He doesn’t know a single athlete that is but he’s still not sure how to handle it, doesn’t have a perfect grip on how to carry himself through it on the NHL level. It was different in the minors, different as a shitty little high school kid playing in the Juniors. It aches in the muscles of his clenched jaw, the tightness of his shoulders. 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, specifically. It wasn’t. But he knows everyone takes it personally anyway. 

He has to hang back because he forgot a fucking glove somehow, like an idiot. Losses get him too in his own head. He’s not thinking clearly. 

The locker room light is still on for some reason. It slows him, brings him to the surface enough that he pauses at the cracked door instead of barging right in. 

There’s a slew of French he doesn’t understand, low murmuring drawled vowels and a hint of Québécois. He stops to listen in because he hadn’t thought anyone would still be here and selfishly he doesn’t want to see anyone. 

It’s Tanger, he realizes. Tanger, spewing words like a faucet. He peeks through the crack in the door. 

Flower looks small, clutched to Tanger’s chest. 

Sid hauls in a breath and he’s lucky that Tanger’s still speaking because it’s loud in the quiet of the deserted arena. Tanger has his arm around Flower, clutching him close. Flower still has his pads on. He looks limp, pale, eyes glassy, a hand hooked around Tanger’s knee. He’s staring into space and looking like Sid has almost never seen him. 

It stings to see but it isn’t for Sid and Sid forces himself back a step and then another one. He doesn’t try to puzzle out the Québécois, doesn’t try to watch what’s happening. It isn’t meant for him. It isn’t right for him to see. 

It makes him uncomfortable but whatever. He can live without his glove for a night. It’ll still be there for practice in the morning. 

He drives home and tries not to think about how small Flower had looked, Tanger’s arm around him, hunched over like it’ll protect him.

-/-

“So,” Geno says, and they’d been laying around on the hotel bed watching game tape because it’s kind of one of Sidney’s biggest leisure activities when he’s too sore to work out and Geno doesn’t have the linguistic capacity yet to convince Sid to do anything else.

He’s gaining in leaps and bounds, though. Eventually he’ll be able to argue Sid around. Sid suspects there will be ill-advised clubbing in his future. He’s not looking forward to it. 

“Yeah?” he asks and deliberately doesn’t pause the tape because he is nothing if not consummately good at being bland and avoiding questions. On-screen Tanger is taking it to the net. 

“So,” Geno repeats and one massive hand effortlessly gets around Sid’s cheek and turns his head. He’s looking earnest and dopey in the way only Geno can, as fucking _aww, shucks_ as Sid has ever seen on someone who’s never had a sincere ‘aww, shucks’ moment in his life. “Flower.” 

Sid pulls his face patiently free of Geno’s hold to frown at him. 

“What about him?” he asks, genuinely confused because he doesn't know what Flower has to do with anything. 

Geno looks at him like he’s an idiot. It’s a very long and elaborate and speaking look. Sid looks down at the game playing out on the screen to avoid it. 

“Flower,” Geno repeats and nudges him this time. “Sid, I not stupid.” 

Sid still doesn’t look at him and Geno reaches out and hits pause on the tape. 

“Sid,” Geno says softly and Sid realizes distantly that his hand is a clenched fist against his breastbone. His heart is beating out a steady drum against it. It makes no goddamn sense and he doesn’t want to think about it at all. 

He unclenches his hand and forces himself to take a deep breath. 

Geno is looking at him with something that at least isn’t pity. Sid isn’t exactly sure what it is, but it isn’t pity, and he’s happy about that much at least. When Geno throws an arm around his shoulders and draws him into his side he lets it happen, because he’s doesn’t really understand a single thing Geno had been trying to say, but at least it’s stopped now. 

It could be worse, he thinks to himself and pointedly hits play on the game tape again. There are worse things than this.

-/-

He finds Flower in his bedroom eating chocolate caramel ice cream with a fork. His blankets are bunched around his knees and there are bags under his eyes and a smear of caramel next to his mouth. The lights are off and the television is playing a cartoon in French, volume down low.

“That's not in the diet plan,” Sid says. Flower tilts his head at him without looking away from the cartoons. Color and light play over his skin and wash him right out until he looks like a ghost. 

“I'm going to get kicked out of the NHL anyway,” Flower says. Sid sits down on the edge of the bed and Flower shuffles his feet out of the way. 

“That much dairy and sugar’s gonna make you shit yourself,” Sid tries instead of arguing. Flower looks at him at last, a flash of eyes reflecting the television in glittering miniature. 

“You can try and take it,” he invites and smiles with every one of his teeth. 

“You're not gonna get sent back down,” Sid says. 

Flower doesn't respond. He just pries out another forkful of melting ice cream and eats it, eyes back on the cartoon. Sid can't really follow it, the French is too rapid-fire and the animations go too fast, but he settles back against the headboard next to Flower to look at it anyway. Their shoulders brush. 

“What's with the fork?” he asks when the episode ends and the next is blaring its tinkling theme song. Flower still doesn't answer but he holds up a forkful of ice cream and it drips all over Sid’s shirt and it _definitely_ isn't in the diet plan but he accepts it anyway. It's sweet and rich and soft enough to melt right on his tongue.

-/-

Sid doesn’t love the postgame interviews and he doesn’t know many players that do. It’s something to grit teeth and push through before he can go celebrate or sulk off a defeat.

He hates it more than most but he has more reason than most and every time he gets shoved out to the press he has to tighten up his gut like he’s about to step onto the ice again. Always the niggling question of whether this is the time some asshole reporter decides to ask something veiled and shitty about his condition, about his play. Even when he’s playing well. 

Someone usually says something. It’s usually something he can shake off. It still fucking blows. 

It’s better, when Duper’s there pushing him busily out the door and winking because there’s this tequila bar they have to go to after press, Sid, a bar for just _tequila_. Geno behind them, face heavy and dour because he has his own interview to do. Flower, hanging back with his hat down low like if he hides enough their media managers will forget he’s there. There’s a whole room of guys that care, that have his back. 

He smiles at the reporter asking him about his point production and politely tells him that he’s sure the team has faith in him and he means it, even.

-/-

“Sid,” Flower says, crackly through the phone speakers, and Sid rolls over in bed to squint at his clock. It’s six, and the sun is a watery trickle under his curtains and he’s still kind of sore from the flight the night before.

“Uh,” he says and drops his face into his pillow. 

“Sid, cancel your plans for the day,” Flower says and he sounds wired like he hadn’t even slept the night before, which Sid knows isn’t true because he’s the one that had to haul Flower’s supine form to the taxi and load it in, baggage and all, with strict directions to the driver to be sure Flower actually got into the house and didn’t stay passed out on his front porch. Again. 

“I don’t have any,” Sid grumbles into his pillow. It must come out muffled as shit but Flower just laughs. 

“Get coffee going!” he crows. “I’ll be there in twenty!” 

He hangs up. Sid allows himself a moment of only half-serious wallowing before he hauls himself up and out of bed to the shower. 

By the time his phone lights up with another call he’s gotten coffee into a travel mug and climbed into a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, hair an ungodly mess and still only barely awake. The sweatpants don’t have holes, and that’s the closest to any kind of decent Flower is going to get out of him at six in the morning without an explanation. 

He’s not as mad as he should be, honestly, he’d been looking forward to sleeping in. 

“What is it?” he answers the phone with and Flower laughs, high and manic. 

“Come outside!” he says and when Sid looks out the window Flower’s half-out the passenger window of a van, waving madly up at Sid. 

Sid sighs. 

“Coming,” he says, and hangs up on Flower’s delighted laughter. 

The van is crammed with people and he stuffs himself in next to Talbot and glances around for a seatbelt before he realizes that there are four other hockey players in this row alone and resigns himself to fate. He hopes they don’t get pulled over. 

“Alright, we’re off,” Tanger says, which is when Sid realizes Tanger is driving and dives for the safety handle as Tanger guns the engine.

-/-

Flower’s rented them a whole entire indoor minigolf course for the morning.

Sid sips his coffee in lieu of some way to react, watching Geno argue with Duper despite the limited vocabulary about how to properly putt through the revolving windmill. Talbot is miles ahead of everyone. Jordie’s managed to not hit a single thing he was supposed to but he’s whacking away with a grin and Sid suspects he’s having a good time anyway. 

Flower sidles up to him and grins. 

“Winner buys lunch?” he offers and Sid grins at him and this is better than any other plans he could have had for the off-day. 

“You’re on,” he says. 

He ends up buying lunch, which is just fine.

-/-

He realizes without fanfare, without prompting, and without dignity.

He's watching Geno destroy a cheesesteak with enthusiasm that's frankly kind of off-putting, grease on his lips and satisfaction on his face Sid would be jealous of if the whole visual weren't incredibly horrifying. They're in Philadelphia but the game isn't until tomorrow and until the outcome is hanging over him he can kind of ignore it, can ignore that he's about to go twelve rounds with the press either way. Lunch with Geno is fine by comparison. 

“That is gonna fuck your gut right up,” Sid observes and Geno grins with neon orange Cheez Whiz smeared on his chin and suddenly all he can taste is chocolate and salted caramel ice cream. 

He sets down his nice turkey provolone sandwich and grips his knees like it'll brace him. 

“Oh,” he says, dizzy. “That's why you were asking about Flower.”

“Flower?” Geno says, and he doesn’t look up from his sandwich at all, which is kind of insulting considering how he’s rocking Sid’s whole universe on its axis. “Hm?” 

Sid open his mouth and then closes it and then sits back and lets the knowledge wash over him. 

“I have a crush on him,” Sid realizes with a surge of vertigo. His heart crunches up what feels like three gears, grinding unpleasantly the whole way. His stomach is rolling and he feels vaguely seasick and has to clutch at the table to keep himself steady. 

Geno is staring at him, he notices. Mouth open a little, sandwich halfway between his face and the plate. He's still got Cheez Whiz on his face. 

“Sid not _know?_ ” he demands and Sid feels himself flush beet red. 

“I thought it was just,” he begins and then realizes how stupid he sounds already without admitting he’d just thought it was some stupid thing to do with his heart. He feels caught-out and also like he's probably never ever going to hear the end of this. 

The grin dawns full and evil on Geno's face. He sets the sandwich back down. 

“Sid,” he pronounces, careful and incredibly Russian. “You stupid.” 

Sid groans and buries his face in his arms. He's still bright red, he can feel how hot his face is, and his heart is still galloping like there's a race it's trying to win. 

He thinks about Flower, his stupid smile and terrible hair and clever hands, and has to catch his breath. This is, fuck. He's so screwed. 

“I'm so _screwed_ ,” he moans into his sleeves. 

“Fuck,” Geno agrees serenely, going for another bite of his sandwich.

-/-

“I’m gonna win you a Cup,” he slurs against Flower’s collarbone and then blinks, dull drunk surprise.

They’re somewhere very loud, a party Sid barely belongs at, and he’s a little too drunk to be making any kind of decisions. He’s pretty sure Flower’s one half of the reigning beer pong championship team at the moment so he doesn’t begrudge being handed off to Duper the way he is a minute later. It’s so loud, and he’s sure Flower hadn’t heard him, and that’s probably a good thing. 

It’s okay. Flower wasn’t supposed to hear him. Because Sid isn’t supposed to want things like this. 

It’s enough to watch Flower stalking around the beer pong table, the way he lines up his shot, the invective spewing when he catches up a red cup. It’s enough to give himself a little longer to watch dexterous fingers, knobby wrists, the way his face pinches in concentration as he lines up a shot. He’s got his hat on backwards. He’s wearing the stupidest shiny chain necklace. It’s enough. 

He carefully disentangles himself from Geno and Talbot and whatever non-Euclidean horror-tangle they’re trying to make of the couch and a slightly horrified blonde, and heads to the bathroom. It’s quieter there, and he can wipe his face and meet his own eyes and think. 

They’re gonna win the Cup. He watches himself lick his lips in the mirror and tries to stop his vision from blurring. 

He’s always wanted to win it because he's a goddamn hockey player all the way down to his bones and, yeah, obviously. He still wants to win it, wants to put his hands on the trophy with a vicious burn. And then, somehow-

 _I’m gonna win you a Cup_. 

He props himself up with a hand next to the mirror and meets his own eyes and marvels distantly at how serious he looks even now. He can barely see straight. He’s pretty sure he’s about to throw up. He looks so serious and he nearly laughs and he still looks so serious. 

They’ll win. He’s sure of it. He smiles and there’s a moment where he can meet his own eyes and his heart is thundering in his ears and the party is swirling outside the door. 

It’s okay if Flower never knows Sid is doing it for him. Not entirely for him, maybe not even mostly for him, but enough for him to be terrifying. So it has to be okay. He presses his hand to his chest, nearly hard enough to pop it open. His heart is beating, beating, beating like a metronome. So steady. 

“Cros _by_ ,” Flower calls, and Sid would know his voice anywhere. He would know what Flower sounds like when he’s won anywhere. “Sid _ney_ Cros _by_ , where are you!” 

“Coming!” he calls and washes his hands ostentatiously.

-/-

Inevitably, they stop losing.

There’s nothing like winning a hockey game and Sid hopes he never ever loses that, because he knows the day he does is the day he’s the heartless bastard so many people want to accuse him of being. As long as winning still lights him up under the ribs and puts a grin on his face that stretches until his cheeks hurt, he knows he’s good. 

The locker room is loud and happy and good. Sid’s exhausted, they’re all fucking exhausted, but it’s easy to sit in his stall and dig the heel of his hand into an ache in his thigh that’ll be a bruise tomorrow and grin loose and pleased at everyone. 

“Duper gets first interview,” a media intern puts his head around the door long enough to say and Sid slumps down a little deeper in his stall to hide how relieved his grin is.

“Sid got the game-winner,” Duper puts in conscientiously, smiling angelically like he’s not trying to pawn off the media responsibility. He’s probably joking. Sid smiles at him uneasily. 

“If we handed mister fucking bardownski the MVP every time he won us a game no one else would get a turn,” Jordie snipes. He looks flushed with victory and Sid knows he doesn’t mean it to hurt, means it to be kind, and so it doesn’t hurt at all and his smile turns much easier. 

“S’good, Staal, that was a fucking cultural reference,” Flower chips in and Jordie makes a face at him. Duper is laughing across the room, red in the face. Tanger is looking back and forth like he’s hoping a wrestling match will break out and Sid just… He can’t stop grinning. 

“Weak, weak comeback, where'd that weak shit come from?” Jordie mocks back. 

“Your _mom_ last night,” Flower says smugly and Jordie tries to tackle him. Tanger is on them both a minute later, entirely unclear whether he’s throwing in for Flower or against him. Flower slides halfway free before someone gets an arm around his waist and he’s being dragged back down to the floor. 

Duper is laughing so hard there are tears in his eyes. Sid’s cheeks are starting to hurt a little. 

“Sid!” Flower shouts and he sounds a little muffled, perhaps because he’s being stuffed into Jordie’s armpit face-first. “Get me out!” 

Sid laughs. His heart is beating, beating so fucking hard. He can kind of feel it in his fingertips. 

“Nah,” he says, playing at nonchalance. 

Flower squawks at him and manages to eel out of Jordie’s grip just in time for Geno to wade in.

-/-

The party is very loud and at what Sid suspects but cannot prove is a frat house.

He’s trying to stick to just whatever soda he can find that isn’t flat because he’s trying to turn over a new leaf where he doesn’t get too wasted and accidentally say shit he shouldn’t to people he shouldn’t. He thinks it’s very grown-up of him and the fact he’s having no fun, stuck in the corner of the living room watching Talbot attempting what he probably thinks is dancing, has nothing to do with it. 

At least Jordie is hanging out with him. Jordie is not sticking to warm Pepsi. Sid keeps catching himself glancing at the solo cup in his hand longingly. 

A man in a Bulls snapback bumps into Sid’s shoulder and he spills the last of his warm, overly sugary Pepsi on his shoes. Sid looks up to argue and the man glares at him like it’s his fault and stalks away. 

Sid hates frat parties. 

“I hate frat parties,” he mumbles to Jordie. 

Jordie says something indistinct into his cup. He’s looking glazed and kindly indifferent. Sid contemplates going to look for the bowl of chips. There’s usually a bowl of chips at these things, it’s kind of Sid’s lifeblood. A handful of carbs and sodium and someone usually around to commiserate about the diet plan and then like, usually some kind of drinking game. Sid usually loses track after that. 

Although, he thinks sourly, he probably will be keeping track tonight if he’s gonna stick to not drinking. 

Someone else slams into Sid’s shoulder and he’s about to spin and actually do something about it when the overwhelming smell of overpriced cologne hits his nose and a familiar head of hair invades his field of vision and he relaxes. 

“Hey, Tanger,” he says easily and gets an arm around him to help hold him upright. 

Tanger’s hands find the front of his shirt and then he’s being hauled around by it, off his feet for a moment and weightless with confusion. They end up nose to nose and Tanger’s red-cheeked and wild-eyed and obviously far beyond wasted. Sid gapes at him. Tanger lifts him a little higher on his toes. 

“You’ll be good to him,” Tanger says, way too close to Sid’s face. His breath is heavy with vodka and fruit juice and Sid wishes he had even the slightest idea what’s going on. 

“Okay, Kris,” he tries and Tanger hauls him closer by the front of his shirt. 

“He has a fragile soul,” Tanger hisses, tone alarmingly venomous, and Sid would mock the shit out of him for it any other time but as it stands he’s actually a little afraid. Tanger’s accent is getting incomprehensibly heavy and he’s hauling all of Sid around like he can barely feel the weight. 

“What the fuck, Kris,” Jordie says and Tanger doesn’t even look at him. 

“Shut up, Jordie,” Sid says and carefully gets his hands over Tanger’s tangled in his shirt. 

“No, really, Tanger-,” Jordie keeps going and Tanger’s head turns blindly to look at him. His hands actually flex against Sid’s shirt and Sid winces as a seam against his shoulder strains threateningly. 

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Staal,” he hisses out of the side of his mouth and gently starts trying to disentangle Tanger’s fingers. “I’ll be good to, uh, him. Promise, Tanger.” Whoever _he_ is, Sid appends in the safety of his own head. 

Tanger examines him for a long moment through disheveled hair. He looks solemnly stupid. 

“Good man,” he pronounces at last and lets go so fast Sid rocks back on his heels and nearly falls over. He has to windmill to keep his balance and nearly punches Jordie in the face in the process, which he doesn’t feel as bad about as he should. Tanger has already wandered away by the time he’s righted himself, casual as anything. 

“What the fuck was that?” Jordie asks. 

“I don’t have any fucking idea,” Sid answers, and leaves to go find something stronger than Pepsi to drink.

-/-

They leave practice last because Flower’s hidden Sid’s tape and he insists on following him around the locker room in a game of hot-cold made even more difficult by the fact that Flower can’t stop laughing and Sid shouldn’t find it as endearing as he does. It’s hard not to just smile at him dopily, difficult to keep the stupefied endearment off his face, and that means he spends three passes and three separate giggle fits from Flower before he thinks to pick up his helmet to find it’d been under it the whole time.

Flower just laughs harder when Sid flicks a gross sweaty tape ball at him and Sid bites his lip and looks down at his hands lacing up his shoes so he won’t give himself away. 

“I’ll buy you dinner,” Flower promises and throws his arm over Sid’s shoulder, overly familiar, smelling of sweat and deodorant and locker room. Sid bites his lip and rolls his eyes and doesn’t think about dinner with Flower. 

“Yeah, my choice,” he says, and tries to say it sourly. It comes out fond. Flower laughs at him. 

“Sure, Squid,” he says and he’s already gone and out the door, back knocking against the frame on the way out. Sid hefts his bag and follows him out. 

The sun is beating weakly down on them and he picks his way carefully across the parking lot, and he’s got his eyes on his feet to keep his footing and so he doesn’t look up in time. He just hears Flower shout in alarm and the shush of skidding tires and he looks up far too late. 

The car is a blur of silver and chrome and he feels the impact as if he’s removed from himself, centered at the softest part of his core, a trembling earthquake through the whole of him. Stoppage, a sudden lurch sideways, no pain yet, nothing but the world spinning abruptly and then. 

There’s a crunch in his chest and then he hits his knees and then his whole body plows into the asphalt in a quick succession of impacts, _bang bang bang_. 

The only thought that follows him down is that it’s such a strange feeling, the shards of glass rattling around inside his chest. Flower’s screaming and someone else is shouting. He closes his eyes and feels his heart stutter, stutter, stutter to a stop.

-/-

He’s aware of the beep of the heart monitor before he’s aware of anything else.

It lulls him a little for a while, the soothing rhythm of it. It takes him far too long to realize that his chest is still. 

Flower is staring at him when he opens his eyes and if he were even slightly more awake it probably would make him jump, because Flower is leaning over him and his face is less than a foot away from Sid’s. 

“What,” Sid asks, but it comes out a rough croak. He's groggy, probably medicated, his mouth cottony and dry. He's thirsty. He wants to go back to sleep. He kind of wants to throw up. 

The heart monitor keeps beeping out that steady rhythm. 

“Here,” Flower says and does absolutely nothing to help Sid sit up. He just watches, and then holds out a shitty plastic cup of warm plastic-y water. Sid takes it and sips cautiously. Flower hasn’t blinked, just big dark wet eyes and an expression he’s too fractured to place yet. 

His whole body throbs, deep ache muted behind what has to be some truly expensive pain medication. It’s centered in his chest and abdomen, sparking off through his limbs as he moves them, but nothing is in casts and he can’t feel any heavy bandages. There’s a few pieces of gauze taped over his shoulder, some more he can feel over the curve of his ribs at his back. He sips more water and settles into the knowledge that he must be at a hospital. 

Flower is still watching him. 

Sid swallows. His throat is kind of achy but the water is helping. 

“What,” he asks, still croaky but at least kind of coherent now. Flower finally blinks. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks and his voice is so weird. Sid squints at him owlishly. He sounds like he’s talking on the phone, polite and high-pitched. 

“Uhh,” he says slowly. It’s difficult to keep his head up, it feels too heavy. He’s not tired just- groggy. “Medicated.” 

“Right,” Flower says and takes the cup out of Sid’s slack hand. It’s empty. Sid hadn’t really noticed. “Yeah, yes. You are.” 

“Yeah,” Sid answers vaguely and pushes himself desperately up through the fog of medication. They must have dosed him on the ambulance or something, it’s getting easier to think as he wakes up, but moving is an iffy prospect and he doesn’t trust himself to handle fine dexterity yet. 

Flower smiles. It looks very strained. 

“How, uh,” Sid asks after a beat. He’s in his own damn hospital bed. It occurs to him to be offended to be forced to be so awkward in his own damn hospital bed. “How are you?” 

The laugh that Flower gives is not a laugh at all. 

“I had your heart,” he says and he sounds like Sid has never expected those words to sound. He sounds raw. He sounds like the words are grinding against each other on the way out. “In my hands. Your heart.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sid says, because what else is he supposed to say. There’s a Band-Aid on Flower’s thumb where he must have been cut by a shard of- whatever. Glass. Glass from Sid's heart.

“No,” Flower says fiercely. His hands bunch in Sid’s bedspread. “You don’t get to apologize, no.” 

Sid isn’t sure how he’s supposed to handle this. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to bear the open, raw tenderness of his empty chest, the thought of how Flower’s hands must have held his heart inside him. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to keep his cool when all he wants to do is just- ask. It’s all he can do to keep his mouth shut against it. 

He knows Flower must have held a heart before. He’s not the type to talk about it much, but he must have. Sid wants to know what he thinks. His freak heart, breaking against Flower’s palms. 

There’s a bulky artificial heart hooked up to him, hanging from its little frame next to the bed. It’s even uglier than his own personal prosthetic heart, a blocky thing of shiny steel and cedarwood. It smells like disinfectant and Sid hates that his chest feels so still. 

“Do you want me to call someone?” Flower asks right as the silence is getting unbearable. “Geno, or-?” 

“No,” Sid spits, quick and panicked, and the silence falls again just as bad as before. He doesn’t look at Flower until Flower takes his hand and he has to. 

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” he promises and Sid nods. The heart next to him is wheezing to keep up, the monitor ramping up in the slow, unnatural way he genuinely loathes. Not attuned to him like his own heart had been. It leaves him feeling weird and displaced. 

“Thanks,” he says. 

“You scared me,” Flower says simply. His eyes are so big and dark. 

“Sorry,” Sid says. His mouth is dry. “I- sorry. Sorry.” 

Flower blinks at him solemnly. The room is very quiet, only the slow beep of the monitor on the prosthetic heart, a door closing down the hall. It must be the middle of the night, the sky out the window is dark and there are bags under Flower’s eyes. Sid wonders vaguely what hospital they’d taken him to. 

“Make it up to me,” Flower says at last, words a little too fast. 

He looks wan. He looks shaken, messy. Sid swallows and hates that his chest is so still because if he had a heart in it he’s very sure it would be pounding like a drum. 

“What?” he croaks. 

Flower smiles and it doesn’t really reach his eyes but his hand is still in Sid’s and, whatever, Sid’s heart had shattered in his chest less than six hours ago. He’s allowed to savor this. 

“Gimme your pudding cup,” Flower says.

-/-

Flower doesn’t even _eat_ the pudding cup.

He leaves it on the bedside table and Sid doesn’t say anything about it. It just sits there and Sid looks at it occasionally and like, it’s ridiculous how it makes the empty feeling in his chest a little less pronounced. 

Whatever. 

Flower passes out eventually, half in the chair and half on the end of Sid’s bed. Sid doesn’t offer to let him climb up with him because he’s a coward and he doesn’t ask why Flower hasn’t gone home, also because he’s a coward. He’s got Sid’s jersey thrown over his shoulders like a tiny ineffectual blanket for some reason. 

Sid’s slept for the past six hours though. Or, been unconscious, which is pretty much the same thing. He’s not tired. He stays up instead, fucking around on Flower’s phone because he doesn’t want to deal with his own, and stealing glances at Flower whenever he forgets to stop himself. 

Flower’s not the prettiest sleeper. Sid’s chest squeezes down around where his heart should be anyway because he’s a fucking sap. He looks back down at the little matching game he suspects Flower only has on his phone for Sid to play. 

The sun is coming up when the door creaks open, lighting up the little bit of the horizon Sid can see through the window all watery and blue. 

A woman pokes her head around the door and smiles at him with a smile a shade too secretive to be doctor-y. There’s a little pointy cap perched on her severely pinned hair. She’s every inch a professional witch, and he sighs through his nose and waves her in. 

The witch assesses the room with a quiet glance. Flower asleep against the foot of the bed, the jersey tucked over him like a blanket. The untouched pudding cup on the bedside table. The bulky artificial heart wired to him and his chest cracked open just a hair, mostly closed in a polite show of modesty. 

“Hello,” she says quietly and smiles. She's got dimples and a bundle under her arm. He smiles back weakly. Flower snores. 

“You're here about my heart,” he says instead of answering her greeting. He knows better than to ask her name anyway, has spent enough time around witches to have the customs hammered into him. He can’t really bring himself to smile though. 

She just smiles at him some more, unbothered, and shifts the bundle from under her arm. 

“I am indeed,” she says. The bundle is all the wrong shape and size to be his heart, he realizes with a sinking feeling. She’s carrying it like it’s heavier than his heart would be. It looks, in fact, like a witch’s fitting kit. 

“That’s not my heart,” he says and Flower wakes up with a deeply disgusting wet snorting noise. It’s objectively hilarious actually, but Sid can’t look away from the witch and she does them both the courtesy of not saying anything about the way Flower jolts upright and nearly falls off his chair. 

“No,” the witch says kindly and closes the door behind her as if Flower hadn't moved at all. Flower doesn’t say anything anyway. He scrubs his hand through his hair and peers at her. 

He doesn’t ask her name. Sid avoids his eyes when he finally looks at him. 

“It can't be fixed?” he asks. He feels vaguely embarrassed to care. Only, it had been _his_ heart. His for almost seven years. 

“It was old,” she says gently. He can't meet her eyes. “You should be having checkups more often than you were, cher.” 

“It wasn't supposed to be replaced until the off-season,” he objects. 

“Perhaps if you were not a professional athlete, hmmm?” she says. She's shaking her head reproachfully at him and he shrugs and hopes he doesn't look as sullen as he feels. 

He hates having checkups. He hates doctors poking around in his chest with cold latex gloves, witches with his heart in their hands examining it clinically for flaws. More shit he needs to do because he's a freak with a fake freak heart. 

“Schedule more frequent checkups,” she tells him with an air of finality. He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at her. 

“I'll make sure he does,” Flower puts in, voice still rusty with sleep, and she and Sid both look at him in surprise. It had been easy, for just a moment and like it's never been before, to forget Flower is here. 

He's smiling, his sweet trustworthy smile Sid knows not to trust for a second. The witch doesn't know any better so she just humphs at both of them and ducks to dig in her bundle. 

“Do that,” she says without looking up. “An old or damaged heart can be dangerous.” 

Flower looks at him narrowly and he winces, absolutely sure he’ll hear about it later. Flower’s expression promises that. 

“Yeah, sure, yes, he’ll make sure I do,” he says quickly, and knows he’s absolutely still going to hear about it later but at least gets to breathe in a sigh of relief at how Flower subsides. “So, uh.” 

“If you’re feeling up to it,” the witch says and lays her bundle out on the little table, pushing the puddling cup aside. “The sooner we can do a fitting the better it’ll be. Less chance for scarring or rejection, you know, of course.” 

Sid does know this. He’s probably got every piece of relevant literature on his fucking condition memorized. He knows it, and he knows better than to test fate and his physical health, and so he nods even though all he really wants to do is go back to an hour ago when he could more or less ignore the cold hollowness of his empty chest and sneak glances at Flower over his pilfered phone. 

“Yeah,” he says tightly. “I consent or whatever. Gimme the fitting.” 

She nods. 

“It's usually quite private,” she says delicately and Flower gets it right away, moving to stand. 

“I'll go grab some lunch,” he says easily, bowing out like it’s the most natural thing to do. 

There’s no excuse whatsoever for the way his hand shoots out to catch Flower’s sleeve. He didn’t mean to do it, there’d been no thought between seeing Flower moving to walk away and yanking him to a stop. It leaves Flower hanging awkwardly, halfway upright, staring at him. 

“No,” he says without thinking and has to swallow at the way Flower and the witch both look at him. “I mean, you can stay. If you want to.” 

Flower smiles at him. It’s a really nice smile. 

“If you don’t mind me staying,” he says cheerfully, and sits down like that was all he was waiting for. It might have been. Sid always suspects him of some variety of mischief. 

“Alright,” the witch says diplomatically and spreads her bundle out on a table next to the bed.

-/-

It's almost not even so bad, Flower's eyes on his gaping chest as the witch does something with whip-thin willow branches and white silk thread. It tickles and everything down there feels kind of raw, her hands in him like that, wood pressing against the inside of his ribs. He swallows and avoids looking down.

The artificial heart wheezes in the silence. Flower stares and Sid watches him stare and he wonders hysterically if this is something commonplace to the witch. Permanent artificial hearts aren't so common, but sometimes a heart is stolen or hurt. She seems to know what she's doing, anyway. 

It is actually incredibly bad. It sucks. It feels horrible and wrong to have someone’s hands in his chest like this, to feel wood that isn’t hazelwood and silk thread where there shouldn’t be. There’s a roll of nausea that keeps bubbling up in his gut and he hasn’t thrown up at a fitting since the first one when he was like, three. 

But it’s better than it usually is. Because Flower looks up from his chest and smiles and it’s… it could be worse. It’s been worse.

-/-

He’s put on IR for a minimum of two weeks, the standard amount of time to readjust to a replacement heart.

That’s not what they tell the press - unspecified upper body injury, that _timeless_ classic - but Sid tells Geno and he’s sure some of the guys must know something. They have the class not to ask about it and he’s grateful. 

He pretends he isn’t aware that the standards had been basically invented just for him and nods along with the trainer trying to sound like he knows what he’s talking about. Sid would lay money on knowing more about his condition than this man, but he doesn’t have a degree. All he has is a busted former heart handed to him in a cold cardboard box and a machine ticking in his chest he needs to adjust to. 

He would have preferred to have the off-season for it but he accepts the verdict when it’s handed to him and doesn’t punch a wall even though he like really _really_ wants to. 

Flower makes big sad eyes at him and he throws his arm around his shoulder and shakes him until he smiles again. Geno swears to score him a goal and then he does and Sid appreciates it even though watching the celly from the press box makes him bite the inside of his cheek raw. No one else says much of anything but he prefers that, honestly. 

His new heart is a heavy, unpleasant weight in his chest. Will be until he gets used to it, used to the new knobs and protrusions of it. It’s difficult to move with and he has to force his way through his workouts and PT. There’s no way he’s good to skate yet. 

He’s going to be good enough to skate in two weeks, though. He’s not allowing himself to be any way else.

-/-

It takes him three before the trainers will let him on the ice but then he scores two goals in the next game and he feels pretty much good after that, as they troop off the ice.

When Flower slams into him from the side, a sly wrecking ball in goalie pads and a tacky gold chain, Sid doesn’t even mind how it jars every organ in him. 

“We’re gonna _party_ ,” Flower crows and like, who is Sid to disagree when Flower’s grinning at him like that.

-/-

Hours later Duper hands him a Flower that can barely keep his feet under him and definitely smells faintly like vomit. He also smells like someone had doused him in vodka and then sprayed the whole mess liberally with Febreze, but Flower smiles up at Sid where Sid is valiantly trying to keep his own feet and like, Sid is a sucker and he knows it.

“Get that to bed,” Duper says and hooks a thumb at Flower. “And sleep off whatever you drank too, there’s non-optional team breakfast tomorrow and I’ll kill you if I hafta do bags because of you.” 

Sid wants to say something scathing about how Flower-wrangling became _his_ job, probably mangled by how truly wasted he is, but then Duper’s eyes are traveling past him and the expression that he makes at whatever he sees is horrified. 

“Tanger!” he yells and charges past. “Get off the fucking table!”

Sid decides sensibly not to turn around to look. Flower is grinning up at him, eyes shiny and unfocused and sweet. 

“Let’s go find a cab,” Sid slurs and Flower nods. 

“ _Get your fucking pants back on,_ ” Duper bellows behind them.

-/-

Flower engages the poor cab driver in an entirely one-sided conversation in French so mangled and Québécois that not even Sid catches half the words the whole cab ride back to the hotel. The driver raises his eyebrows in the rearview mirror at Sid but he doesn’t say anything and when they pull up at the hotel Flower’s already squirming his wallet out of his pocket to grab out cash. Sid figures he’s probably dealt with worse and levers Flower out of the cab.

They navigate the lobby without running into anyone from the team or anyone that looks like media. Sid is thankful, because Flower has graduated from hanging off him to actively trying to climb him jungle-gym style. 

It’s not sexy. Flower’s nearly kneed him in the balls like four times in the short trek from the veranda to the elevator. 

He gets Flower out of the elevator to his room with some effort, because Flower is wasted and wants to press more buttons and Sid is also wasted and it’s always been difficult to argue with Flower, no matter the circumstances. 

“No, no,” Flower laughs in his ear. His mouth is against Sid’s jaw, wet and overly warm. His hands are plucking at Sid’s jacket as Sid heaves them down the hall, pulling it up and then smoothing it back. Sid grumbles but he’s smiling, smiling, smiling. “I wanna, Sid, let me.” 

“ _Flower_ ,” Sid hisses back and Flower tries to jerk back out of his hold, failing abjectly and only barely avoiding sliding down Sid’s chest. He clutches at Sid’s shoulder to keep upright and they slam into the wall. 

They’re pressed together, knee to shoulder. Sweaty and drunk and Sid can feel, scarily intimate, how Flower’s taller than him but not as broad. It would be easy to turn them, to cage him against the wall, and that’s a dangerous thought he doesn’t want to have. 

“I wanna lay down,” Flower says, and Sid doesn’t think about how easy it would be to press their mouths together. He’s got a lot of practice with that one. 

“Let’s _go_ ,” Sid answers and yanks them back into something almost like upright. 

Flower is no help with the door, throws his wallet down the hallway instead of getting out his keycard and making Sid retrieve it. He leaves Flower to list against the doorframe and fingers blearily through stacks of half-filled punchcards and faded receipts. There’s a little stack of keycards, old ones Flower must have stolen over their many roadies. He recognizes some hotel brands. 

He finds the card eventually, gets the door open after three tries. Flower follows him in at least, listing around like a ship at sea but still putting one foot in front of the other until he hits one of the beds and falls in face-first. 

He’s grumbling happily when Sid figures out how to get the door shut again, squirming against the sheets and contorting in an effort Sid decides might be to get his shoes off. He leaves him to it and goes looking for water. 

Flower’s managed to strip down to his boxers and undershirt by the time he finds it, somehow. Sid swears he’d only looked away for a minute, but he turns back around with a glass of water in each hand and Flower is sprawled across the rumpled bed looking like- 

There’s a grinding vibration in his chest, his heart kicking up and up in gear. 

Sid swallows and looks away. Flower looks like something that’s not for him. None of him is for Sid. 

“Water,” Flower demands and grabs at the air in Sid’s direction. Sid goes hopelessly and hands over the cup of water. Flower promptly spills half of it all over himself, guzzling happily and not apparently noticing. Sid watches it happen and his heart is groaning with the strain of how hard the mechanism is working. 

“I’m gonna,” Sid says, realizes Flower isn’t listening, and stumbles to the other bed.

-/-

Flower wakes him with an elbow to the shoulder, squirming under the covers with him.

He’s still drunk but now in that stuffy, disgustingly greasy place where the hangover has started to overlap. It’s too warm even with just himself under the blankets but Flower doesn’t seem to notice, just presses himself against Sid’s side and breathes horrible cocktail-scented breath all over Sid’s face. 

“Huh,” Sid manages and Flower slaps him in the process of getting a hand over his mouth. 

“Shh,” he whines and tucks his face against the hollow of Sid’s shoulder. Sid goes quiet. His head hurts and his mouth is dry. It’s too hot under the covers and Flower’s thrown his leg over Sid’s, skin slick and sticky with sweat. He groans when Sid extricated his arm from under him and maneuvers it awkwardly so Flower’s tucked against his side instead. 

He can feel Flower’s heart, drumming out a beat against Sid’s ribs. So close. He’s snoring already, against Sid’s chest. His hand is sweaty against Sid’s stomach. 

He closes his eyes against the dark, against the way the room spins, against the ache in his chest that is nothing to do with the groan of his heart trying to keep up. This is good. This is okay. Sid will be okay, because there’s no way for Flower to know how badly Sid wishes his hand were higher, pressing against the place where Sid’s ugly artificial heart is pounding against his ribs. 

He falls asleep like that.

-/-

Geno doesn’t say anything about the way he looks when he stumbles down to team breakfast, hangover messy, smelling of Flower and vodka in a distinctly unpleasant way. He just smirks and nudges over a glass of water. Flower is there already, freshly showered and pristine in a way that only highlights how disgusting Sid is. He hadn’t showered and he’s regretting it.

Flower laughs at him like he can’t remember the way they’d fit together, the hotel wallpaper surging in like a tide to swallow them up, but there’s nothing unkind in it. His hand finds Sid’s across the table, and Geno is a solid and sullen weight next to him, and this- 

“So what’s with the keycards?” Sid asks and gestures at Flower’s wallet on the table when Flower frowns at him. Flower grins and ducks his head. 

“Away game shutouts,” is all he says, and Sid nods because he gets it. 

This is what he has. He has Geno at the breakfast table, he has the way he smells of Flower’s body from the night before. Tanger is there across the table and Duper is shouting some absolute bullshit from down the line, and it would be stupid of him to ask for more. 

Sid doesn’t know who would want more than this.

-/-

Geno answers the door to his hotel room after a full three minutes of furious knocking. He’s wearing boxers, his necklace, a belligerent expression, and nothing else.

“It bothers me,” Sid says without any preamble. 

Geno squints at him and scratches his balls. Sid rolls his eyes and shoves past him into the room. 

Geno takes his sweet time closing the door and settling onto the messy bed. The shades are drawn and the floor is a mess of discarded clothes and candy wrappers. He’s still squinty with sleep but making a valiant effort to focus on Sid, which Sid appreciates. He’s stopped scratching his balls too. 

“Flower hasn’t said anything about it,” Sid continues. 

“Sid,” Geno says, and Sid thinks he’s about to address what Sid’s saying, but then Geno leans over to squint at the clock. “Is seven in morning.” 

“It’s _bothering me_ ,” Sid says plaintively, because he doesn’t have the words to explain how he’s feeling at all, let alone to condense it down into what he can be sure Geno will understand. It does bother him, anyway. A constant, nagging thought. Because Flower hadn’t said anything. Still isn’t saying anything. 

Geno looks at him. 

“Coffee,” he says, just before Sid’s about to ask if he’d fallen asleep again but with his eyes open. “Bacon, also. Then talk Flower.” 

“Okay,” Sid says, and then has to get up quickly and go to hang out with his back to Geno because Geno proceeds to strip out of his boxers with absolutely zero shame whatsoever. He sees enough of Geno’s dick in the locker room. Sid wishes, plaintively, for better friends. 

“Tanger taught me word,” Geno says conversationally behind him. Sid doesn’t turn around; he isn’t fooled. Geno hasn’t put on pants yet. “Good word for you. Is, uh, repressed.” 

“Oh,” Sid says hysterically, and wonders if Flower takes contracts in pranking his friends, and if so how much it’ll cost him to take one out on Tanger. “Is _that_ my problem.”

-/-

Geno orders a plate of eggs and bacon bigger than his head and proceeds to work his way through it with a methodical intensity that makes their waitress visibly quail. Sid tries smiling at her and sighs to himself when she just visibly steels herself and brings him his egg-white omelet and buckwheat pancakes. He can’t take Geno fucking _anywhere_.

“Okay,” Geno says at last, when he’s made his way through most of his food and sat back to rub his belly and sip his coffee. Sid picks at the remains of a pancake and thinks sullenly that he could have asked, like, Jordie to talk. Not that he trusts a single piece of advice a Staal has ever dispensed. He could have and that’s what matters. “So, we talk now.” 

Sid pushes aside the swell of déjà vu. He isn’t pleased with the pattern of weird pseudo-breakdowns occurring in Geno’s vicinity, but he also isn’t going to pay attention to it unless he has to. 

“In public?” he asks and doesn’t love how whiny it sounds coming out. He’s too old for this shit, probably. 

“Sid, no one listening,” Geno says genially, which is fair because the diner is nearly deserted. “Talk about Flower or I leave you bill.” 

Sid rolls his eyes. Geno knows what his contract is worth. Sid isn’t worried about the bill for a shitty diner breakfast. 

“Fine,” he says reluctantly and scoots a neat little triangle of depressingly bland pancake around his plate. “So, yeah, Flower.” 

“Good goalie,” Geno says and belches. “Unless, is worry about performance? Is good, I think.” 

“No, no, he’s great,” Sid says hastily and sits up straight. “Best goalie in the league, hands down, I don’t care about the statistics.” 

Geno has already started laughing at him by the time he figures out he’s been tricked. He slumps back against the vinyl seat and smiles reluctantly. He does love Geno, even when Geno’s busy driving him up the wall. No one else gets him out of his own head so quickly, except maybe Flower. 

“He never said anything about my, you know.” He hesitates. Geno’s eyes are heavier on him, suddenly. “My heart. He never said anything about it.” 

“Maybe, worried will say wrong thing,” Geno says reasonably, sipping his coffee. Sid shrugs. 

“No one’s ever,” he says and then his voice fails him. 

He’s such a fucking cliché, he thinks to himself with acrid bitterness rising in the back of his throat. The man with no heart, losing his shit in a shitty diner. Over this, of all things. Over what he should have gotten over in high school, when he resigned himself to never having what every person with a real, normal heart in their chest took for granted. 

“Sid,” Geno says gently. 

“No one else’s ever touched my heart,” he says in a rush, spitting the words out onto the table between them. “No one but like, family and doctors and shit. No one… no one special. No one else has even seen it.” 

There’s silence between them. Sid puts the cold, soggy little pancake triangle in his mouth to have something to do, because he isn’t going to raise his eyes and he isn’t going to look at Geno. 

“Sid,” Geno says and Sid had thought he’d sounded gentle before. “Is nothing wrong with you.” 

“I _know_ ,” Sid snaps and his hands are fists around his silverware and he’s glaring at Geno before he can remember he isn’t looking at him. “I know! I fucking know.” 

Geno’s looking at him calmly. Stolid and remote and kind. 

“Nothing wrong with you,” Geno repeats. “Flower think so too.” 

Sid’s anger spends itself all at once. He’s left winded and aching and his fucking metronome heart is pumping loud in his ears. 

“I just,” he says and his mouth is numb. “I just want him to… to say something.”

Geno’s hand descends on his across the table. It’s warm and a little moist. Sid clutches it and resolutely doesn’t let himself even think about crying. 

“You okay, Sid,” Geno says and it carries the weight of a promise.

-/-

He manages to make it through the rest of the roadie without losing them a game or accidentally having an inconvenient public meltdown about something he isn't interested in letting out into the world.

His shit is his own to deal with. Not for anyone else to see, not without permission, not if he wants to stay sane and at least like, passably functional. He'd learned that one at age eleven. 

Geno keeps waggling his eyebrows at Sid whenever he can conceivably get away with it. Flower eyes him a few times in a way that says he's noticed something being up, but he seems content to let it go for the moment. Sid is thankful. 

He keeps telling himself things could be worse, and they genuinely could be and he knows that. He doesn’t know why it keeps coming out sounding like such a lie.

-/-

He should have known better, on account of the fact that whatever mysterious forces govern his life like to balance out his insane amount of luck with occasional periods of shitting on him relentlessly.

So Flower shows up at his door the day after they come home. 

It’s an off day and Sid’s got a load of roadie laundry in the dryer and another in the washer. He's got vague designs on doing some dishes and then like, maybe reading a book or something. Mostly he’d kind of been looking forward to just laying down and trying to sleep off how his body aches. 

Flower shuffles his feet shadily on the welcome mat and doesn't look at him and Sid _knows_. 

“Geno said something,” he says flatly. 

Flower makes a face. Sid grunts and turns away to walk back down the hall, leaving the door open. It closes and hesitant footsteps follow him. 

“You shouldn’t listen to him,” he says, and ignores the way his heart is grinding between gears in his chest. It does that sometimes, when it can’t decide if it should be slow or fast. He stops himself from lifting a hand to massage at his sternum. 

“He didn’t say-,” Flower begins. 

“It’s none of his business,” Sid interrupts, dropping onto the couch and glaring up at him. Flower goes quiet. He’s watching Sid with wary eyes, hands in the pockets of his jeans, and he looks- 

Well, he’s beautiful. He always is. But he looks uncomfortable too, shoulders up around his ears, mouth a tight little scrunch. 

Sid can’t keep the anger clutched tight to his chest when Flower looks at him like that. It just isn’t something he can do, be mad at Flower. He sighs and sits up a little and it helps, how Flower’s shoulders lower a little as he does. Sid thinks about kissing him and then lays that thought aside, habitual and easy. 

“He just said you were having a rough time,” Flower says quietly. “I worry, you know. About you.” 

“Geno puts his nose in shit he shouldn’t,” Sid mutters, because he’s nothing if not hypocritical when it comes to this shit. 

“ _That’s_ the fucking truth,” Flower mutters and hesitates next to him like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to sit down. There’s something there, in the way he glances at Sid out of the corner of his eye, in the way his smile doesn’t quite touch his eyes. 

Sid doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to answer any questions of his own. 

“I’m okay,” he says truthfully, because he is okay. Drama bullshit he should have left behind in the high school he barely attended doesn’t count. “You wanna watch something? I just have some laundry going.” 

“We’re going to watch Shrek,” Flower says instantly and Sid makes a face at him but Flower topples into the couch next to him and sprawls out like he only does when he’s comfortable so Sid is happy.

-/-

“You can talk to me,” Flower tells him quietly.

Fiona is in the middle of kicking the asses of Robin Hood and the Merry Men and Sid is understandably distracted. He doesn't answer until Flower nudges him. 

“I know,” he says, works to keep his voice normal and not soft and fond like it wants to be. He's not going to be a sap about this. “It's really not a big deal, I promise.” 

“Alright,” Flower says, not like he believes Sid, but like he's promising to give Sid space. “Hey, so, we should order some takeout, yeah?”

-/-

Geno does him the courtesy of not pretending like he doesn’t know why Sid is calling him the next day but he absolutely laughs through Sid’s sputtering attempt to be mad at him and it’s difficult to think about how angry he is at the intrusion of his privacy. First of all, he’d invited it. Second of all, Flower had fallen asleep on his shoulder halfway through the Lion King and Sid still doesn’t feel quite recovered.

“Meet me at the diner,” Sid demands and hangs up on him and storms away to go grab his shoes. He’s like pretty sure Geno will show up, even if just to laugh at him, and even if he doesn’t Sid can’t complain about a well-done omelet and some coffee. 

Geno does roll through the door a couple minutes after Sid get there, though, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and also smug as hell. He nods to the waitress and ambles to Sid’s table and Sid would hate him if Geno weren’t arguably the best friend Sid’s ever had without also being in love with. 

He sighs through his nose and nudges the mug of coffee over to Geno. Geno mutters happily and waves at the waitress with a smile and the waitress goes back into the kitchen with pink cheeks. Sid does hate him a little bit. 

“I don’t need your help,” he says in a fierce undertone. 

Geno doesn’t pretend not to know what Sid’s talking about. He just sips his coffee and grins at Sid unrepentantly. 

“Okay,” he says, and Sid hates him a _lot_. 

“I don't!” Sid snaps, and it’s pretty much categorically true in most areas except this one and also sometimes hockey in general. “Nothing is going to happen, okay? He doesn't- he doesn't want that.” 

“Sid is stupid?” Geno demands. “Flower let Flyers score on him if you say.” 

Sid sputters. 

“He would _not_ ,” he fires back weakly. “This isn't about hockey anyway! Flower is… he's special.” 

“Sid special too. Everyone special.” Geno pauses to consider and grins, wide and mischievous. “I most special. Flower and Sid okay.” 

Sid buries his face in his arms. 

“You're the worst,” he whines. “Stop trying to help me.” 

Geno pats him on the arm. 

“Is okay,” he reassures. “I know you repressed.”

-/-

It’s not like Sid’s repressed _per se_. He just-

It’s not like he’s a virgin or anything, he’s in the NHL and he went through the teenage bullshit and Jack Johnson was definitely a thing no matter how Sid tries to repress a full ninety percent of it. He doesn’t necessarily enjoy seeing his teammate’s genitalia just, like, swinging around but he thinks that’s a more normal reservation than Geno wants to admit. Sex doesn’t bother him. 

It’s not sex he’s repressed about, maybe. It’s more like, they’re watching some shitty reality TV because Geno thinks Sid’s buying his excuse that it helps him with his English and Sid secretly enjoys it too much to call his bluff. One of the women with incredibly tall hair and poise Sid wishes he had is going on about how she dreamed of handing her husband her heart, and Geno makes this _face_ at Sid. 

Sid has to get up to go to the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub for a while and not think. 

He doesn’t really imagine giving his heart to someone. It’s embarrassing. He goes hot and shaky and nauseous just thinking about the barest idea of it, way more painful than fun and just… he doesn’t, anymore. 

He doesn’t even think about Flower letting Sid touch his heart much, though that one’s more because it hurts in Sid’s chest when he does let himself think about it. 

It’s probably soft. It’s probably on the bigger side, Flower’s got a lot of love. Sid’s seen hearts before, in movies and artsy shit in museums. He can kind of picture what it would look like in his hands. Sid bites down on the inside of his cheek and carefully pushes the thought away. 

When he comes back out the TV is playing Cartoon Network and Geno doesn’t say anything about it.

-/-

“You’re not allowed to get mad at me for caring about your health,” Flower opens with, so Sid knows to take a running start at pissed off.

“What did you do?” he asks and presses the heel of a hand against an eye. It’s probably too early for this and it’s starting to be a habit, Flower invading his spaces far too early in the morning. He hasn’t even finished breakfast. The front door is barely closed behind Flower. 

“I did some research,” Flower says, which isn’t much of an explanation. Sid stares at him until he shrugs. He actually looks shifty, won’t meet Sid’s eyes. It’s kind of mystifying, and kind of worrying. Sid’s always been shit at being mad at Flower. 

“Research,” Sid prompts. 

“I promised the witch,” Flower admits to his shoes, and Sid puts it together with a jolt right down to the pit of his stomach. Because- because what the _fuck_. 

“What,” he manages. Inarticulate. His tongue feels swollen in his mouth. It’s so early, and he wants a coffee, and he’s pretty sure he’s swaying in place. Flower winces but holds a little piece of paper out between them. It’s a printout, some kind of list, folded over so Sid can’t read it yet. 

“Places that will do checkups discreetly,” Flower says. “I didn’t like, schedule anything. Or contact anyone. Just a list.” 

“Why would you-,” Sid says and cuts himself off and Flower winces again but doesn’t pull his hand away. 

Any anger he could have felt is giving way to panic a little bit. He balls his hands into fists to try to keep a hold on it but he can still feel the way his breathing is tilting towards hyperventilation. 

“I found some statistics,” Flower says, and Sid knows the statistics he’s talking about. He’s read them all. He knows all the statistics when it comes to people with freak hearts like his. He knows the risks. He knows it. 

“Nothing bad’s happened,” he says weakly and it occurs to him belatedly that this is the first time Flower’s ever acknowledged there could be anything different about him at all. Anything about Sid that’s anything other than normal. This is the first time he’s ever said a single thing to Sid about his heart that wasn’t with Sid in a hospital bed. 

It knocks a little fear out of him. It leaves him winded, and shaky, and blinking at Flower standing in Sid’s entryway looking bedraggled and sorry for himself. Holding out a list that he had to have spent an hour researching at least, because it isn’t like most places advertise treating Sid’s condition with how rare it is. 

“They’re scary,” Flower snaps at him. “They’re scary as shit. _Tabarnak_ , Sid, people fucking die, people who aren’t even hockey players!” 

“People with normal hearts die in hockey too,” Sid points out thoughtlessly and Flower gapes at him. 

“Is that supposed to _reassure_ me?” he demands, voice high, and it’s so- it’s fucking hilarious, and Sid chokes on a laugh because the whole thing is so fucked up. So stupidly fucked up. 

“Maybe,” he says. “No. No. Fuck you, Flower.” 

“I want you on the ice,” Flower says and he’s staring at Sid like he’ll make Sid believe him by force of eye contact alone. Which, actually. “Not fucked up in some fucking hospital bed. It sucked, Sid. It fucking sucked.” 

“Oh, it sucked for _you_ ,” Sid says without thinking and Flower grins at him, strained and anxious. 

“Gave me a neck ache, staying the night there,” he says and his tone is light and the way his smile lights up into a real one when Sid takes the little folded paper from him does a lot to mollify him. “Don’t make me do that again.”

-/-

“Is there a like, making a save for someone?” he slurs out against Flower’s shoulder and he remembers vaguely there’d been a reason he was going to cut back on getting wasted where other people also were but it’s escaping him at the moment. Mostly, all he can really think about is how pleasantly tingly his lips feel.

“Wha-?” Flower says back. He’s not much better off than Sid. He’d won beer pong, again, of course, and then obviously there’d been celebratory shots. Sid hadn’t been clear and still isn’t totally sure why he’d been included in the round but he’s in no place to protest. 

“Like,” Sid says and rolls his head against the bony cap of Flower’s shoulder. He contemplates biting down on Flower’s shirt because his mouth is just _so_ weirdly numb, and then fuzzily decides it probably won’t taste very good what with how sweaty it is. “Like, when you score a goal. For someone. Do goalies?” 

“Uhh,” Flower says and lurches to his feet. “Fuck, gonna puke.” 

Sid sympathizes.

-/-

Because he isn’t an idiot, he really isn’t, he never _tells_ Flower when the goal he scores is for him.

He’s not stupid. But sometimes the goal horn goes off and there’ll be this moment when he’s mid-celly where he can see Flower at the other end of the ice and like, he’s not stupid in general but he’s pretty stupid over Flower. It’s largely whatever.

-/-

This time it’s Sid in the locker room, recognizing the slump of Flower’s shoulders under the pads. He rolls his skates against the floor, back and forth, and the little part of Sid that isn’t remembering Tanger holding him together under harsh locker room strip-lighting is thinking that can’t be healthy for Flower’s knees.

Tanger isn’t here. Tanger is in with the trainers, because going headfirst into the boards will do that to a person. 

Flower doesn’t look up at him when he sits down next to him. He doesn’t lean in, either, though Sid wasn’t expecting that. Sid doesn’t try to touch him. He just watches people leave, nods to the people that look at him, bumps knuckles with Max when he reaches out. Flower is breathing slow and regimented. 

Geno leaves after Sid nods at him and then stares for long enough that Geno gets the message. The door swings shut and they’re alone under the buzz of fluorescence and the crowd a floor away. 

Sid thinks there’s probably a lot of things he could say. He even comes up with a few of them, but he knows how well ‘losses happen’ would go over if someone said it to _him_ and he doesn’t know enough Québécois anyway. 

He just sits in silence with Flower and Flower wilts slowly against his shoulder. 

He smells pretty rank. His temple against Sid’s shoulder is cold with drying sweat, and his Under Armour is going to be a bitch to get out of, and eventually someone’s going to come yell at them for staying in the locker rooms like this. Sid still doesn’t say anything. 

Eventually Flower pulls himself back up and his hands are shaky when they go to work on his pads but not the worst Sid’s ever seen them. He stays sitting next to Flower.

-/-

“Come back to my place,” Flower says after practice and Sid shrugs because it’s not so weird, heading to Flower’s for beer and takeout Sid scrupulously pretends is in the diet plan. It isn’t until Flower’s backing the car out of the lot and the radio isn’t on and Flower isn’t _talking_ that Sid realizes that it’s actually incredibly weird.

He shifts in the seat and Flower glances across at him and Sid realizes with another start that Flower’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel. It makes the beat of his heart tick up a notch, uneven and rushed. Because, shit. 

Shit. 

“Hey,” he tries, awkward and clumsy. He shuts up as soon as Flower rolls his shoulders and pulls to a perfectly legal stop at a yellow light. 

“In a minute,” Flower says, soft and vague, and Sid works on not swallowing his own tongue.

-/-

He follows Flower into the house, shadows him through the process of kicking his shoes into the pile next to the door and his keys into the bowl in the kitchen. Lucky, that he has muscle memory to carry him through toeing off his own shoes and leaving his bag in the living room, because his pulse is roaring in his ears and he’s not tracking his hands as well as he should be.

He turns from making sure his bag is out of tripping range and jumps because Flower is framed in the dark entrance to the hallway to the bedrooms and it’s frankly like, a little bit creepy. 

“Promise me you won’t freak out,” Flower says softly. 

“Uh,” Sid says because he’s kind of already freaking out. 

“Promise, Sid,” Flower says, and Sid manages to nod. It must be good enough despite being manifestly a lie because Flower doesn’t stop him from moving in a little closer. 

Flower looks uncomfortable, shifty and determined. Sid’s not sure he’s ever seen him look like that before, like he’s holding in something a little unpleasant, like he’s not _sure_ of himself. It’s disconcerting and it distracts Sid from what Flower says next because he’s so busy trying to think if he’s ever seen Flower look uncertain like this. 

“Huh?” he asks intelligently when he realizes he’s missed what Flower said. 

Flower sighs. His shoulders tighten up around his ears even further. He looks like he’s hunching in on himself. He looks kind of like he’s trying to make himself smaller but all he really looks like is awkward. 

His hand is up against where the catch of his ribs would be under his shirt, Sid notices with the roar of his pulse so very loud. 

“If you wanted to, maybe,” Flower begins and Sid really gets what Flower’s asking about with a surge of nausea. His heart is cranking out a dull roar in his ears and for some fucked up reason all he can really think about is the Band-Aid on Flower’s thumb in the hospital so many months ago. 

“I’m in love with you,” he blurts. 

Flower’s mouth snaps shut with the click of teeth. 

“Shit,” Sid says. His voice is thin. He’s not sure he has any air in his lungs. 

He’s pretty sure he’s about to throw up. 

Flower blinks at him, eyes all big and dark and baffled, and Sid is like definitely going to throw up. He looks down at his hands, hanging uselessly at his side, and stuffs them hastily into his pockets. He should, he should probably leave. He should go. 

He can’t look at Flower until hands are catching him by the biceps and he’s being yanked to a stop. 

“Wait,” Flower says, “wait.” 

Sid stops trying to pull away. 

He looks at Flower, and there’s a moment where his vision is blurry and he knows how this goes. Flower walking away from him, the sour rejection in his mouth, the way he’d look at all the many strings Sid’s heart comes bound up in and how much would work it would take to be with him. Skinny, manic-mouthed Flower, worth so much more than Sid could ever offer him. 

He looks strong, standing tall, standing like a champion. Sid loves him. Sid loves him so goddamn much. 

“Marc-André,” he says. The syllables come out all clipped with how he can barely breathe. “Marc.” 

Flower laughs. It’s a watery sound. He’s still got a grip on Sidney’s upper arms and his hands are unbearably warm. 

“It’s Flower,” he insists and Sid loves him. He’ll maybe always love him. No matter what happens, he’ll love Flower. It aches in the back of his throat. 

“Flower,” he says. 

“You love me,” Flower says, and it isn’t much of a question. 

“Yeah,” Sid says. His hands are still in his pockets. “It’s like. Yeah. It’s whatever.” 

The thumb brushes over the ridge of his cheekbone and he jolts violently. He somehow hadn’t even realized Flower had moved his hand but he had, his fingertips curling around the hinge of Sid’s jaw, his thumb coming up to press into the hollow at the hinge of his jaw. 

It isn’t running away. Still, it isn’t running away. Sid holds on to that. 

“Do you trust me?” Flower asks. 

Sid nods. He doesn’t know how he could do any differently. 

Flower lets go of him. 

His hands fumble at his chest and Sid doesn’t understand, somehow. He doesn’t understand until Flower’s shirt is falling at his shoulders, unbuttoned to the neck, and Flower is fumbling at the catch of his own ribcage with his clever fingers and the instinct surges in Sid sudden and vicious to- to protect. 

Flower’s chest opens with an audible little _crack_ and all Sid can think is that he wants to turn, to put his back to it so he can watch the exits, so he can keep Flower’s open chest safe. 

“Sid,” Flower whispers and reaches into his own chest. 

Flower’s heart is- 

It fits in Flower’s cupped palms, pink and red and soft-looking, drawing Sid’s eye like it’s got its own gravity. Sid can’t look away. He can’t look directly at it. He doesn’t want to. He can’t stop looking back and forth between Flower’s heart and his face. 

He wants to reach out. He wants to touch. He keeps his hands at his sides, even though he doesn’t know what this could have been leading to except for this. 

“It’s yours,” Flower murmurs and Sid looks at his face at last. 

Flower isn’t looking at him. All the lean, rangy strength of him bent over the open fissure of his chest and the delicate pink-red thing in his hands that Sid still can’t look at directly without an answering pang in his chest demanding to be felt. Flower is looking down at the heart in his hands and he’s smiling, soft and wistful and sweet. 

“All yours,” he murmurs and looks up at Sid. “I love you too, stupid.” 

Sid gasps for air and he still can’t touch Flower’s heart, he _can’t_. He can reach out, though, he can cup the backs of Flower’s hands and hold it protectively that way and that’s… that’s so much more than enough. So much more than he’d ever dared to hope for. 

“I,” he tries. His heart is going like he’s never felt it. “I, just, I.” 

“That’s okay,” Flower says like he understands what Sid’s trying to say and he’s grinning wide and watery and sincere and Sid takes a breath that feels like it reaches all the way to his toes. They’re bent together over Flower’s heart in the safety of the cramped little hallway and he wants to give Flower the whole fucking world. “That’s cool, oh god. You wanna feel?” 

Sid chokes. 

“Yeah,” he says, “yeah.” 

Flower tips his heart into Sid’s palm and it’s- God. 

It’s clasped between their hands and it’s soft and warm and he’s never felt anything like it. Like Flower’s palm cupped around it from the other side, like Flower’s heartbeat thrumming against his own pulse, like he’s cupping something so much more valuable than anything he could ever be allowed to touch again. 

He never wants to let it go. He never wants Flower to let it out of his chest, this fragile beautiful thing. 

Flower lets him draw it in towards his chest and Sid barely notices his palm sneaking up to press against where Sid’s own heart is thundering out a vast mechanical rhythm against his ribs. He hasn’t thought about his own heart at all. It’s still difficult to think about, with Flower cupped in his palms. 

“All yours,” Flower murmurs and his mouth is so close it’s almost a forgone conclusion, almost anticlimactic to look up and Flower’s bottom lip to brush against Sid’s top one. Flower’s palm presses against his pulse. “When you wanna. If you wanna. Even if you don’t.” 

Sid closes his eyes and tilts his head up and kisses Flower the way he deserves, with every bit of himself he has to give and that part of himself leftover, the part of himself he’s kept hidden under his ribcage. His heart is pounding against Flower’s palm and he has Flower’s heart in his hands and Flower might be brave but someday… someday Sid knows he’ll be brave too. 

“I will,” he promises against Flower’s mouth, and means it like he’s never meant anything. “I will.”


End file.
